Connie has a gun
by NoWindForThisHole
Summary: LUPUS CAME BACK


Connie was crying. "Mom, I can't keep chopping these onions. I've been chopping for three hours, I think we have more than enough for the salsa for tonight's big game. We have enough onions to last us until next December."

Connie's mother looked away from her Macbook. "Connie I am on the phone. I am talking on the phone and I am not talking to you. Get back to work."

"Hey mom, I'm gonna use a bigger knife to speed things up." Her mother did not react, and so Connie pressed on. She pulled Rose's scabbard out from behind the grocery bag that was filled with other grocery bags. She closed her eyes, reflecting on what Pearl had taught her to think about before the first swing of the battle.

"Connie," she had said, "right before I cut a bitch I think of what Rose said to me. 'Pearl, I choose Greg.' This fills me with the anger that fuels my blows." Connie had faked emotional connection and developed her own method, which was to imagine she was slashing at the very concept of Steven being inconvenienced in any possible way."

"NO NO NO NO NO" she shouted, driving the sword so deep into the kitchen counter that she busted all of the plumbing.

Connie's mom ran into the kitchen. "Connie, what the hell are you doing to our sink?!"

"Bye, mom, it's time for fighting class," Connie waved as she was already halfway out the door. Mrs. Maheswaren first shook her fist, but let it drop as she finally accepted that she had botched her relationship with her daughter just as she'd botched approximately 49% of her operations.

At the Gem Barn (Garn), Lapis and Peridot were just finishing up their latest video. "If you more top tens hit that subscribe button and make you sign up for that free trial on audible dot com i listen to it every day in the car on my way to a real job at a real company," Lapis read off of the cue card. Peridot gave two thumbs up.

Connie pulled up on her bicycle. "Ring a ding ding, I'm here for the thing," Connie recited the secret code.

Peridot excitedly opened the door, platinum play button in hand. "Lapis, we have a vi-si-tor!"

"Shut up, Peridot, I'm trying to film my Sister Location Trailer First Reaction And Thoughts video!" Lapis groaned.

Peridot shrugged. "She IS cranky. Come in."

The first thing Connie noticed upon entering was the gold Rolls Royce propped up haphazardly across the wall, which had been wallpapered with first-edition Superman comics and base set Charizard cards. Connie pointed towards the car. "Is, uh, is this where Greg stores his big money purchases?"

"Nope!" Peridot chuckled. "That's mine."

Connie paused. "That... all of it? What?"

Lapis floated down from the rafters, decked out in a Versace sweater worn over a Versace dress, wearing John Lennon's actual glasses. They were his glasses. Connie was even more dumbfounded.

"How did this happen" Connie uttered.

Lapis explained, nonchalantly and only half-understanding, "Peridot wanted some cash so we asked Pearl how to get cash."

Peridot opened her iPad and showed Connie the screen. "We found this, like, human distraction about spending money and building cows, but the money in the game is the same as the money in real life! So we just re-routed the money to my bank account. Oh! And we put my bank account under Greg's name. Pearl said it would save time."

Connie shook her head. "God."

"I don't even know what money means," Lapis admitted.

"Where is Pearl, anyway?" Connie asked, changing the subject. "She said she'd meet me around here."

"Peri, where's Pearl?" Lapis asked Peridot.

"Pearl?" Peridot asked Peridot.

Pearl was there. "Yes?"

Connie spun 360 degrees and looked up. "Hey, Pearl."

Pearl shook both of Connie's hands. "It is good to see you my subject my trainee my under-dog hello Connie."

Connie was abrupt. "I've been practicing like you told me too. I totally fucked that dust up and I did ALL the laundry. I stole $20 out of my mom's wallet like you asked."

"Good work, Connie." Pearl said enthusiasticly, placing her open palm above Connie's head but not patting it. "You're one step closer to being assigned the job of cleaning up the battlefields from 5,000 years ago that have not been touched by man."

"Sick achievement, gamer girl!" said Peridot. "Level up."

Pearl hoomphed. "Aaaare you ready to go? Home? Get Steven? Steven is in that home."

"YES," Connie cried.

The crew of two shimmied back to the beach shack and Pearl opened the door to let Connie through the door so Connie walked through the door that Pearl had opened to let Connie walk through, and then Pearl walked through the door that she had opened to let Connie walk through.

The household was as usual. Garnet was performing the mannequin challenge by standing silently in the corner by herself. Amethyst was braiding her hair to the floor, and Steven... Steven was.

Connie ran up to Steven and gave him a big hug as usual. "Steven put your hands on my hands, quick!" Steven did. They did not fuse. This disappointed everybody involved. Sad Garnet stopped doing the mannequin challenge and left the room because she was so upset.

Pearl sighed and pointed at the two children. "Alright, you too, sit down. It's time for me to tell you a story." They obliged.

Pearl clapped her hands together. "Okay, okay, this is a story called 'How Pearl got lost in the woods and found a nice man with a nice friend but then the nice friend was not who i thought it was, okay. So, it's 1982. Good ol' '82, before Rose met Greg. 1982, another great year without Greg. 1982, two years before the prophesized tragedy, but no tragedy could top Greg, who was not there yet. 1982, a place, a feeling, a time without Greg. 1982." She paused to gasp.

"So, Grrrarnet and I were on a mission without Greg, in the woods, to find some... fucking gem shit, I don't remember. I was with Rose, Rose was with me, alone, in the woods, looking around for... ggugggh. Anyways, Rose left me for two seconds and I got lost, and I called for Rose's help, but of course, she was somewhere else, seducing some... bear...

And I got lost in the blizzard, or fog, or... I couldn't see. This was the first time I was ever more than ten feet away from your mother, Steven. And it was also my first encounter with a hairy fucking man, but at least this one didn't have a guitar. At first I thought it was Rose but then I realized Rose was not a short hairy man. He said to me, 'what's a pretty thang like you doing in the peaks?' I told him the gem thing and he looked worried, but then another hairy thing started coming up to us and he looked even more worried. I tried to ask him what the problem was but he just started screaming. And then he reached into his satchel and took something out, but it was too late. The big hairy thing mauled him and immediately started eating his arms."

"Oh! Was that dad?" Steven interjected with interest.

"No, it had too much energy and purpose to be your dad. But, yeah, after the bear ate that man's arms, it turned to me. But on the ground in front of me, was the object the man had pulled out. That was my first time touching one of these." Pearl tossed a rifle onto the table.

Connie jumped in immediate fear. "Oh, god, what?"

Pearl picked the gun up and twirled it around as if it were her spear. "And I shot him like this." She aimed the rifle at a 2'' by 2'' photo of Greg on the wall and put a hole directly through the center of it. Connie couldn't hear anything for 15 full seconds. Even when the sound came back, silence still filled the room.

"Hey, Pearl, lookiiit!" Amethyst called from kind of far away, pointing to her hair fully braided to the carpet.

"Come on, Connie, we're going to town," Pearl smiled.

"Is that really a good idea?" Connie questioned.

"Connie. I've been in the WARS. I've been in the WOODS. I've been in Roooooadfights. I _think_ I know what I'm doing."

Connie resigned to her future. Steven felt excitement in his body and his soul as he chugged an energy drink. The three left, never lookit at Amethyst.

After a short, silent walk around the cliff, the three reached town. "What will we do first, Nose Mother?" Steven jittered as the drink started to kick in.

"Well, first thing's first, you can't learn to shoot if you don't try shooting. You need to shoot. That's what practice is, Connie."

Steven was bamboozled. "Then why aren't we going to the ruins?"

"And that's how I learned to protect myself the American Way. By practicing and with this gun."

Steven had more questions. "And why is Peridot coming with us? She doesn't even need a gun."

"WHAT is up, Youtube Live audience?" Peridot shouted into her iPad microphone with no regard for proper webcam volume etiquette.

"And here it is," Pearl flourished, motioning to the carnival games of the pier, with her middle finger pointing to the right one. "A shooting range."

"Hey, it's those Bang-Bang Bottles!" Steven said. "I used to play this all the time until I ran out of money."

"I sure do remember that, Steven, and that is why you are not the one with the gun," Pearl shuffled. "Alright, Connie, we're aiming for the top bottle." Pearl tossed the gun in Connie's direction. Connie was not expecting this and did not catch it and it landed on her foot.

"Ow, ugh, god... how do I do this?" Connie grumbled, fumbling with the rifle. "You haven't given me any instructions on this."

Steven put a vice grip on the barrel. "It's real easy you just gotta go you gotta pull you aim you fire you shoot you score one two three that's the way we dance the tango." He pulled the trigger.

Before Pearl could even say "Steven that was a bad decision," the bullet had already pierced the nearest fire extinguisher, which decompressed and began flying through the air like a deflating balloon, until it ultimately collided with the manly back of Mr. Smiley.

"Smash that like button if you agree that this man just got pwned!" Peridot screamed to her webcam.

Mr. Smiley whipped his head around. "What. The FUCK are you SHITHEAD kids doing with... oh GOD, is that- oh for the love of- this is NOT acceptable, this is a strict, no-gun, no... weapon in general, area! Get that thing out of here!"

"Second amendment," Pearl retorted. She whispered to Connie, "that's a little trick Rose came up with. I don't know what it means but it seems to work like 20% of the time."

Mr. Smiley was flabbergasted and simply pointed to the "NO GUNS" sign to his right. Pearl yanked the gun out of Steven's hands and shot the sign. Smiley grabbed a broom and leapt the counter as Connie & The Gems & Steven fled.

"This is fun!" chimed Steven.

"This is not legal!" shouted Connie.

"This. Is. SPARTA!" Peridot said as her subscriber count continued to drop.

Mr Smiley had stopped giving chase at the edge of the boardwalk, where his jurisdiction ended, and called the local authorities, who consisted of Mayor Dewey and absolutely no one else. Mayor Dewey sped in his van all two blocks to the scene.

"Shit! It's the fuzz!" Pearl snapped. She fired the gun faster than she could aim and blasted a huge chunk out of the papier mache bust of Mayor Dewey that "graced" the roof of the van.

"BOOM HEADSHOT" Peridot hollered.

Mayor Dewey leaned nervously out of the passenger-side window, a pillow tied to his head. "Hey, you rapscallions and also the hot woman. What you are doing right now..." he waggled his finger nervously, "You'd better, it's not, noooot okay, and you had better stop that, right now, right this instant. Or I'm gonna geeeeet angry."

Pearl fired a whole round of warning shots into the tires and keyed a penis onto the door. "I AM ABOVE THE LAW."


End file.
